Murder with Fried Chicken and Waffles (Mahalia Watkins Soul Food Mystery)

by Herbert, A. L.

  “Where does she work?”

  “From what I could find online, she works in human resources for a law firm,” I say to Wavonne as we enter Heather’s building and look at the directory for Saunders and Kraff and Associates.

  “Seventh floor.”

  Wavonne and I approach the elevators that eventually open to an opulent space of shiny hardwood floors, plush chairs, and a granite reception counter with fresh flowers on the far corner.

  “May I help you?” asks a pretty blond receptionist.

  “Yes. We’re here to see Heather Williams.”

  “May I get your name?”

  “Halia Watkins and Wavonne Hix.”

  She picks up her phone and dials. “Heather. I have Ms. Watkins and Ms. Hix here to see you?”

  Silence.

  “Halia Watkins and Wavonne Hix,” the receptionist repeats into the phone.

  “Tell her we’re from Sweet Tea.”

  “They said to tell you they are from Sweet Tea,” the young lady says into the phone before looking back at us. “She’ll be right out.”

  Shortly thereafter Heather emerges from behind a dark wood-paneled door looking more mature than I remembered her, probably because of her professional dress.

  “Halia. Hello,” she says with a perplexed look on her face. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “Damn straight, there is,” Wavonne says.

  I bump Wavonne with my elbow to shut her up. “Yes. There is, Heather. Thank you. Can we talk in private?”

  She hesitates for a moment. “Ah . . . yes . . . sure.” She gestures for us to follow her, and the three of us walk along a softly lit hallway to her office.

  “Such a nice office,” I say as she closes the door behind us.

  “Thanks. I really only have it because I’m a recruiter. I need a private place to conduct interviews. Otherwise, I’d be out there in one of the cubes.”

  I nod and there’s a brief moment of silence before Heather asks, “Are you still considering investing in the Reverie Homes program?”

  “No. We’re here about another matter, actually.”

  Heather doesn’t say anything so I begin. “I don’t know of a good way to approach this, so I guess I’ll just say it. Heather, you’re a nice young woman . . . at least I hope you’re a nice young woman, but I know as sure as the sky is blue that I smelled Marcus’s cologne coming from the trunk of your car, and I need you to explain why.”

  “So you’re the one who prompted the police to show up at our house and search our trunk?”

  “So I am.”

  “Did they tell you they didn’t find anything related to Marcus’s death?”

  “Yes. They also told me the trunk liner had been removed.”

  “So?” Heather asks, and I can tell she’s trying to hide it, but my comment has unsettled her.

  “Seems like an extraordinary coincidence that shortly after Marcus is killed, I get a whiff of his cologne from your trunk. Then, when the police arrive at your house, the piece of material that would most likely contain some DNA evidence has been removed.”

  “Josh had a gasoline container in the trunk . . . that he uses for the lawn mower. It tipped over. That’s—”

  “A gasoline container? That’s funny. I heard it was a carton of milk that leaked.”

  Heather stumbles. “There was a carton of milk.... That was before the incident with the gasoline.”

  “You expect us to believe that?! Do we look like some kind of dumbass hood rats?”

  I glare at Wavonne, and she shuts up. But I can see her simmering toward a boil. I put my hand on her leg and stroke it gently. “Take it down a notch, Wavonne. There’s no need to get riled up,” I say to her before turning back to Heather. “As Wavonne said, you really don’t expect us to believe that, do you? And even if we did, it still does not explain why Marcus’s cologne, a custom scent made just for him, was wafting out of your trunk.”

  Heather just stares back at us, and I can see her hands trembling just ever so much.

  “You and Josh had a right to be angry with Marcus. I don’t dispute that, and one might understand . . . even a jury might understand how, in a heated moment, someone might lose it. What do they call that? Temporary insanity?”

  “I’m sorry, but you two need to go. I don’t have any information for you.”

  “We’re not leaving, Heather, until you tell us what happened the night Marcus was killed.”

  “Do I need to call security?”

  I call her bluff. “I don’t think you’ll do that. You’ll have a lot of explaining to do when your colleagues see two women being manhandled out of your office.”

  Wavonne and I just sit there and stare at Heather. She looks genuinely afraid, but doesn’t say anything.

  “I’ve got all day,” I say, looking at my watch.

  Heather nervously shrugs her shoulders, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. The three of us sit there in silence for a few seconds, which turns into a minute, and then two minutes. I begin to wonder if I’ve ever been in a more uncomfortable situation in my life. We continue to play the waiting game, and I begin to doubt that Wavonne and I will be able to outlast her. She’s clearly strong-willed. I’ve got a restaurant to run. I can’t sit here all day playing chicken with Heather Williams.

  “Fine,” I say and stand up. “We’ll go, but we are not done here.”

  “Goin’?” Wavonne says, standing up, as well. “Hold up!” she adds, putting a hand in the air. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere.” She stomps over to the other side of Heather’s desk. “Look here. The police are on my ass, and I didn’t do nothin’. We know you know somethin’, and we ain’t leavin’ ’til you tell us what it is. I’d hate to mess up that pretty little white girl mug of yours,” Wavonne says in a harsh tone before she puts her hands on the arms of Heather’s chair and shoves her face right up against hers. Heather’s head is pressed so hard against the high back of her chair I swear it might burst right through. Her face goes from bright red to stark white as Wavonne raises her voice even louder. “And I don’t like no violence, but let me remind you in case you forgot . . . I’m from PG County, hooka’, and I will wreck a bitch!”

  “We didn’t kill him! We didn’t! Josh just moved the body. I swear !” Heather yelps like a scared kitten.

  “Josh did what?” I ask, grabbing Wavonne by the elbow and pulling her away from Heather.

  “He moved Marcus’s body . . . dumped him in the lake. That’s all. We . . . he didn’t kill him.”

  “Then why’d he move the body?” Wavonne asks.

  Heather looks down at her lap and then back up at us. “Because Josh thought I killed Marcus. I do have a temper on me, and honestly, I’ve gotten . . . well, I’ve gotten sort of violent before. But I go to an anger management program, and I’m doing better. I’ve done some things in the past that I’m not proud of, but I would never kill anyone. Josh and I had a fight when we got home from the restaurant . . . not really a fight . . . it was mostly me yelling at him. I’ve always blamed him for us getting involved in Marcus’s mortgage scheme. I eventually stormed out of the house, and, when I didn’t come back for a while, he got worried and went looking for me.”

  The color has come back into her face, and I sense she’s relieved to finally be sharing this information with someone.

  “He didn’t know where I went, but he thought I might have gone back to your restaurant to see if Marcus was still there and scream at him the way I’d screamed at Josh. He drove back over there, but the restaurant was dark, so he figured he’d look for me at my mother’s or my friend Christie’s house. Once he’d passed the restaurant, instead of turning around, he said he figured he’d just loop around the back of the shopping center to the exit. That’s when he came upon Marcus’s body. He thought I’d killed him.”

  “You? You’re tiny. How would you have killed Marcus?” I ask.

  “I have . . . used to have anger issues. Poor Josh has been on the wrong
side of my temper more than once. It’s ridiculous . . . really it is, but I can see how, in a panicked moment, he might have thought that I . . . well, you know . . .”

  “The scar on Josh’s cheek?” I ask, remembering how noticeable it was when they came to Sweet Tea for lunch a couple of days ago.

  Heather looks away from us. “Like I said, I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, but I would never kill someone. Josh just got all flustered and wanted to protect me. He thought he could fix the situation by getting rid of the body or at least buy some time to figure out what to do. It was a stupid thing to do. I had been at my mother’s the whole time.”

  “Josh must be awfully strong,” Wavonne says. “Halia and I were barely able to drag Marcus out of the kitchen to the back alley, and there were two of us. How’d Josh get him in the trunk and dump him in the lake all by himself ?”

  I frown at Wavonne as Heather raises her eyebrows. “What do you mean you were barely able to drag Marcus out of the kitchen?”

  “Nothing,” I say.

  “Marcus was dead inside of Sweet Tea? And you guys moved the body? And you’re here questioning me?”

  “That’s not important—”

  “Like hell it isn’t. How do I know you didn’t kill him?”

  “Fine,” I say and take a breath, seething mad at Wavonne for opening her big mouth. “We did drag Marcus’s body out back. We found him dead in the restaurant. Someone hit him over the head with a cast-iron frying pan. Much like your husband, I panicked and was afraid my business wouldn’t survive if word got out it was a murder scene, so Wavonne and I did some body-moving of our own.”

  Heather looks at me thoughtfully. “Well, at least I know Josh’s secret is safe with you. You blab to the police about Josh, and I’ll blab to the police about you.”

  “Point taken.” I sit back down, and motion for Wavonne to do the same. “So if you and Josh didn’t kill Marcus, then who did?”

  “Jacqueline,” Heather says conclusively. “I’m almost certain she did it.”

  CHAPTER 35

  “I knew that bougie ho was up to no good. How do you know Jacqueline did it?” Wavonne asks.

  “Josh saw her sitting in her car when he drove into the parking lot. She drives that tacky gold BMW, right?”

  “He saw her when he was driving around looking for you?”

  “Yes. He said he didn’t really process it until later. She was still at the restaurant when we left, so I guess it didn’t seem that odd that she was still there.”

  “She was just sitting in her car?”

  “That’s what Josh said. He wasn’t sure what she was doing. He was looking for me, and when he came upon the body he forgot all about her and just got to work getting rid of it. He wasn’t thinking straight.”

  “We have to tell the police about this,” I say.

  “Oh no, we don’t. I don’t want Josh placed back at the restaurant after we left the first time. Remember, you blab, I blab.”

  “Fine, fine.” I think for a moment. “If Jacqueline really is the culprit, we need to find a way to get the police interested in investigating her further, but I’m really not sure what we’re dealing with here.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Jacqueline’s car was not in the parking lot when Wavonne and I came back to the restaurant, and Marcus was dead when we found him. If Jacqueline did kill Marcus, she did it before Wavonne and I got there. For some reason, she came back to the scene of the crime. Why would she do that?” I ask and think about how I didn’t see Marcus’s car in the lot the night of the murder. I wonder if I might have missed Jacqueline’s, as well, but that seems unlikely. Marcus’s car is black and quite discreet at night while Jacqueline’s flashy gold BMW is glaringly noticeable anytime.

  “Probably to cover her tracks as best she could,” Wavonne says.

  “Or maybe to move the body herself or, like Wavonne said, to get rid of any evidence that would link her to the crime.”

  “The frying pan!” I say. “She probably came back to wipe her fingerprints off the frying pan. She could have hit Marcus over the head with it in a heated moment, ran away in a panic, and thought about the evidence she’d left behind after she got out of there.”

  “Makes sense. So there’s a frying pan with her fingerprints on it? Where is it?” Heather asks.

  “Yeah, Halia, where is it?” Wavonne asks with a snarky grin.

  “It’s not of any use to us now. When Wavonne and I were cleaning up, I absentmindedly dropped it into a sink full of soapy water.”

  “Really?” Heather asks, looking at me the way I often look at Wavonne when she’s done something stupid.

  “Yes. Really,” I say, embarrassed that yet another person knows of my moment of carelessness. “I guess all I can do is call Detective Hutchins and put a bug in his ear about Jacqueline. . . remind him of her often-obvious disdain for her brother.”

  “Don’t call him. Call your boyfriend instead.”

  “Jack is not my boyfriend,” I respond, but Wavonne does have a point. I’ll get a much better reception from Jack than I will from Detective Hutchins.

  I pull my phone from my purse and hit Jack’s number in my contacts. He gave it to me a long time ago and told me I could call him if anyone ever got out of hand at the restaurant.

  “Officer Spruce.”

  “Jack. Hi. It’s Halia from Sweet Tea.”

  “Hey there,” Jack says, sounding excited to hear from me as Wavonne makes kissy noises with her lips. “What can I do for you?”

  “I was just wondering if you had any updates on Marcus’s case.”

  “Halia, you know I’m not supposed to share updates on ongoing investigations.”

  “Of course. I understand, but I just want to make sure you . . . the police . . . are considering Marcus’s sister, Jacqueline. You can ask anyone. Everyone knew that she essentially hated her brother.” As I’m saying this, I suddenly feel guilty for throwing Jacqueline under the bus. She’s doesn’t eat my food, and she’s a bit of a prickly pear, but she’s always been generally pleasant to me. I certainly have no ill will toward her. But if Josh really did see her back at Sweet Tea after the murder, the cops should be prodded to at least investigate her further. If she has nothing to hide, she should be fine.

  “Yeah. We heard about her tenuous relationship with her brother from a few folks. I shouldn’t be sharing this, but Detective Hutchins did briefly consider her a suspect. He did some investigating, and it turns out she actually co-owns the house she and Marcus lived in. Maybe Marcus thought putting her name on it, as well, would protect it in case he was ever sued.”

  “Sued? Say for screwing people out of their savings through a crazy mortgage scam?”

  “Something like that. But once we got the lead of a, shall we say, full-figured woman using Marcus’s stolen credit card, Hutchins backed off her. Jacqueline’s lean as a string bean. She doesn’t fit the description.”

  “That’s good information to know, Jack. Thanks for keeping me in the loop.”

  “You’re going to get me in trouble, Halia,” he says with a laugh.

  “Nonsense. I won’t tell a soul what you shared with me. Hope you’ll come by the restaurant soon.”

  “I will. Have a good day, Halia.”

  “Hope you’ll come on by the restaurant soon,” Wavonne says, mimicking me while batting her eyes. “I don’t know why you two just don’t get a room and get it over with.”

  I ignore Wavonne, but Heather laughs.

  “So it turns out Jacqueline had more than dislike of her brother as a motive to kill Marcus. She’s on the deed to the house. With Marcus dead, it’s all hers. But they’re not looking at her as a suspect as she doesn’t fit the description of the Rubenesque woman who used his stolen credit card.”

  “Someone used Marcus’s credit card after he was killed?”

  “Apparently so,” Wavonne says before I have a chance to respond.

  “Thank you, Heather. You’ve
been really helpful,” I say, getting up from my chair. “I guess we’d better get going. If the cops are not going to investigate Jacqueline, then I’ll just have to do it myself.”

  CHAPTER 36

  “What’s a Zumba class?” I ask Wavonne as I peck away at the computer in my office.

  “Zumba? That’s some Latin dancin’ exercise bidness uppity heifers do at the gym. I’ve seen ’em on TV shakin’ their behinds to Marc Anthony and Paulina Rubio. Why?”

  “I found Jacqueline’s fitness Web site. It says she’s teaching one of these Zumba classes in a couple of hours over at the LA Fitness a few miles up the road.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re thinkin’ of goin’?”

  “I don’t know. Seems like a good enough excuse to reach out to her and try to find out what she was doing in the parking lot so late the night Marcus was killed.”

  “You? In a Zumba class? This I gots to see.”

  After I wrap up a few things at the restaurant, Wavonne and I swing by the house to change clothes. Yes, I own yoga pants. I have never, nor do I intend to ever do yoga, but damn if they aren’t comfortable as all get-out. I put them on with a big T-shirt and tennis shoes and call for Wavonne to get a move on.

  A few seconds later she emerges from her room looking like she just stepped out of some Wayans’s Brothers’ spoof of Flashdance. She’s squeezed herself into a purple spandex leotard, cinched at the waist with a shiny black belt. She’s wearing sheer panty hose and some loud neon sneakers that I’m sure cost way more than she has any business spending on shoes. She’s taken off her wig and pulled her real hair back and clipped on a fake ponytail.

  “Really?” is all I can bring myself to say.

  “What?”

  “We’re not making an Olivia Newton John video from the eighties, Wavonne.”

  “Don’t be hatin’ just ’cause you ain’t got no style, Halia. And who’s Olivia Newton John?”

  I laugh. “Hose, Wavonne? You’re gonna work out in panty hose?”

  “Halia, these thighs need hose. I get to shakin’ and swayin’ without hose on, I’m liable to take out a few skinny bitches. Besides, I gots to look good. There may be some handsome brothas in the class.”